Prost Gotvins Geometri – Part 9

This is Prost Gotvins geometri by Gert Nygårdshaug. The translation was done by Roy Johansen. Nygårdshaug is a Norwegian author and the text has not yet been published in English. Roy is a friend of mine who recently moved back to his native Norway. He has translated a good part of the novel and I'm trying to convince him to finish it.

Here’s Part 8.

Father Gotvin's First Journey (continued)

Thinking back to this act, this totally absurd whim that led me into a number of unpleasant situations, I still feel it was precisely the right thing to do, then and there, right place and right time, but the hours immediately afterward were filled with feelings of embarrassment, shame, and regret. Being the center of that much attention was not at all enjoyable. People flocked around the tree I was in, police and ambulances were called in, and being done shouting, I had to climb down again – there was no other way out. The police were not exactly amicable; I was thrown into a patrol car and taken directly to jail. Several hours passed before I finally got a chance to make a statement. A second person was in the cell with me who, the moment the barred door slammed shut behind me, came up to me, slapped my shoulder, and said something I didn’t understand. I attempted to speak English but stammered and stuttered unintelligibly until the man finally led me to a bunk where I finally managed to calm down with a paper cup of lukewarm water.

I drank.
The man was older than I. Approaching fifty?
Nice clothes.
An alert and reliable-looking face.
His left arm in a cast up to his elbow.

I sat there deep in agony, my face in my hands. I had never before in my life been involved with the police; never been anywhere near a jailhouse cell. I fumbled around in my mind for some comforting words. The Book of Psalms 34:19: “Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the Lord delivereth him out of them all.” That’s how it had to be. All the misfortunes of the righteous opened up for something glorious, but was I one of the righteous? Now? “The prisoner is not only delivered, he finds an angel awaiting him at the door, and with each deliverance there is a material blessing; one angel was Faith, another Love, another Joy, yet another Longsuffering; one angel was Gentleness, another Kindness, another Meekness, another Temperance, and another Peace, and each of these was saying: We have come out of great tribulation.”

”Not very crowded here today,” said the man. He stood smilingly in front of me; had he heard my chaotic thoughts? “What crime did you commit, son?”

”Crime?” All of a sudden I felt completely calm.

”You don’t look particularly dangerous,” he continued, all the while smiling, as if royally amused over the situation he and I were in.

”Dangerous? No, not at all,” I got my tongue straightened out. My English, such as it was, became more fluent. “I am a minister from Norway and I suddenly got this urge to climb a tree in the park to, well, get a better view, but then I happened to shout something and then the police came. It all happened very quickly and now I don’t understand what business I had up in that tree.”

The man laughed and put his hand out.

”Sebastian Sebastol. I am the instigator of the illegal strike at the oil pressing plant. They arrested me this morning at the square as I was passing out leaflets. Did you call for God up there in the tree or did you hope the Virgin May would descend down to you?”

I took his hand and shook my head.

”Gotvin Soleng from Vanndal, Norway,” I said quietly.

”Oh well.” The man sat down on the bunk by the opposite wall, “A lot of loonies come here to Compostela.”

I did not feel offended, although I according to señor Sebastol qualified as a “loony”, but wouldn’t someone come and unlock that door soon and let me explain? Show them my passport. It was almost seven o’clock and mass was in an hour. Besides, I was hungry. Would Norwegian authorities be notified of my arrest? Newspapers? “Vanndal vicar arrested in Spanish sacred city for disorderly conduct” – that’s what they’d write. Again I searched around for some comforting words but none found me. Instead I started listening to this man who was sitting across from me. Should not I, a minister, a humble and devout Christian, accept God’s and the Holy Mother’s multitude of manifestations? What rock was it I was trying to push anyway? My own?

Martin Luther threw his inkwell.
At Wartburg he saw the Devil.
On the chamber wall in the tower.
He hurled his inkwell at the Evil One.
The Devil never again visited Martin Luther.

I put my forehead in my hands, leaned on the table, and closed my eyes. My incurable curiosity – where would it lead me? The smell of camphor and the stifling heat, the breath, the breathing of the people around me made me feel queasy for a minute. But after a few sips of water, I straightened my back and continued to leaf through the books. After all, this was source material far beyond the assortment at Oslo’s School of Theology and the Devil was an entity I and most others of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Norway had rejected long ago. But why had we thrown out certain things while having kept others? Why had we rejected the miracles which all through history had been “writ in the sky” and which the Pope and every last cardinal believed in and swore by? I was no stranger to the history of the Catholic Church. I could well remember the decree on the Church delivered on November 21, 1964 during the Second Vatican Council. Pope Paul VI’s solemn promulgation stating that, “the Catholic Church is the only true church, the Catholic Church alone preaches infallible truth, the Catholic Church is necessary for salvation and is entrusted the riches of heavenly goods, the Catholic Church alone holds the Spirit of Christ and possesses the full and adulterated truth.” Thus went the decrees and the memory of it did little to cheer me up. But, if this were true, it would certainly explain why God’s miracles were given to them, the Catholics. Still, my faith is just as strong as the Catholics’. You know it is, Lord Father! Would you enfold in your grace your insignificant, strayed disciple Gotvin Soleng, who is battling difficult thoughts in a library in Spain? Would you give me a sign, Lord Father? Lest my faith capsize. A sign? A tiny little sign? Now?

The cathedral.
The geometry.
Lucienne Lopez.